EVENTS

Vigilantes

Paul Elam and “Agent Mauve” at A Voice for Men have done what they said they were going to do, and found the identity of one of the University of Toronto students who protested a talk by Warren Farrell. They’ve plastered her picture on the site, and named her, and posted a long angry rant about her. (In reading it, I see in the right-hand margin something claiming that I have my “knickers in a twist.” Oh goody, a new front opens in the great WarOnMe.)

They conclude in their usual threatening manner.

In the coming days, [redacted – OB] will have her profile as a bigot placed at Register-her.com. But she will not be alone.

We will continue to work until we have identified every violence promoting, property destroying, bigotry spouting ideologue associated with that protest and placed them all on the pages of AVfM, as well as Register-her.com

Comments

Many years ago, many more than I care to remember, I young lady I knew quite well at the time was accused in a debate of having her “knickers in a twist.” She immediately interrupted the speaker with “And how do you know I’m wearing knickers?”

Actually it is now three. Question did you read what they said and did? One has been not only at the demonstration but else where issued death threats against men in general and thought men suiciding was “good”. That is not free speach. These women have stepped over the line. Why should they not be called on to account and accept responsibilty for what they did.

Different from what Jezebel did with the teenagers that tweeted racist messages?

A lot of people have a problem with what Jezebel did there. Without condoning what Jezebel did I will (since you asked) note one big difference: the women protesting the talk were not (paranoid MRA claims to the contrary) making hateful claims about men as a group.

How is it different from what Gawker did re: Violentacrez at reddit?

Violentacrez crossed a line (actually, many lines, over a period of time) and the writer at Gawker spent some time weighing the pros and cons before he outed him. He also spoke to the man first.

How is it different from what the hollaback sites do?

Do you have any specific incident in mind? AFAIK, Individuals on hollaback post information about what happens to them, personally. The video of the protest that we’ve all seen is equivalent to what happens on hollaback.

If a man was assaulted by one of the women at that protest and he discussed the incident in detail, that would be a hollaback type response.

How is it different from what David Futrelle, Manboobz, does?

Has Dave Futrelle doxxed anyone? Who? Why? Under what circumstances?

One Big Difference between all of the above and this instance: the women being outed by AVfM are being outed by and to a community of men who routinely express misogyny and tacitly (sometimes overtly) support violence against women.

Michaeld, I basically agree that no sites should be publishing PII, and that it is a terrible bug of our day that Google/Bing/Facebook/etc. allow for the 24x7xforever existence of our stupid behaviors to be found well into the future. I think that’s not good, and one large reason I am against any form of doxxing.

Stacy,

Hollaback started, and got a lot of good press, by being a website you could anonymously post photos of men, and those photos and your unverified claims of what those men were doing, would be published. They had no takedown policy or rebuttal available. Hollaback was lauded at Salon, Slate, and many feminist sites.

Violentacrez, near as we can tell, since no charges have ever been filed, only did legal things, and mainly, he did them at the behest of Reddit’s Owners and Admins. So while I dislike the subreddits he created and the subreddits he policed, I am still not sure of the line that he crossed that justified his doxxing. A better response would have been Gawker going 100% after Reddit’s owners and Admins, but Gawker didn’t do that, because the two sites feed off each other’s traffic.

David Futrelle has doxxed people and allowed people to be doxxed in his comments. In his comments, I have been threatened by his commenters with doxxing and retaliation. More importantly, in a discussion of Warren Farrell, Futrelle has said “I certainly do approve of holding people responsible for what they say”. In fact, David Futrelle’s entire modus operandi is to cherry pick commenters statements out of AVfM and other sites and then to raise them to be ridiculed by the Internet. He drew PZ Myers in on this a couple of months back. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/09/27/why-do-i-despise-mras/

The Wooly Bumblebee has made a statement that Ophelia Benson outed her. No doubt be cause Ophelia like Futrelle wants to hold people responsible for their statements. Ophelia denies doxxing her saying she doxxed herself but that Ophelia only posted the previously posted information.

These women at U of T, how are they different from the Berkeley protesters of the sixties, like Mario Savio, 22?

How are they different from any protesters at any rally: Pro-Palestinian rights, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, Occupy Wall Street?

If they are over 18, why should they not, as Futrelle says, be held responsible for what they say, or here, what they actually did?

Why do you act to diminish them as young, or women in danger? Isn’t that patronizing and condescending?

Isn’t it sexist?

What if these women had physically blockaded atheists speaking at Skepticon? What if they were pro-lifers physically blockading doctors and nurses or pro-choice advocates?

I believe the police are the proper people to deal with those breaking the law not a website and they did indeed disperse the protesters when they tried to block the entrance.

If a racist website posted the names of some of the people protesting its protest and on the video of the event there were threats leveled at the counter protesters would you say its racist that people might worry about their safety?

David Futrelle has doxxed people and allowed people to be doxxed in his comments.

That’s an assertion, not an answer to my request for specifics.

Why do you act to diminish them as young, or women in danger? Isn’t that patronizing and condescending?

I do not “diminish” them. I said this:

One Big Difference between all of the above and this instance: the women being outed by AVfM are being outed by and to a community of men who routinely express misogyny and tacitly (sometimes overtly) support violence against women

I am against any form of doxxing

OK, then you’re against this instance of it, then. We’re agreed on this case.

Me, I tend to judge each case individually. I will admit to mixed feelings about doxxing as a tactic. I’m OK with the outing of violentacrez, for example. My main problem with it in this case is what I highlighted up there in bold.

And I’m not going to engage any claims that Elam and the AVfM bunch are really harmless and anyway the “kill all men hail satan” joke is just as bad as YouTube comments threatening rape. Not saying you’d do that; just that if anyone does, I’ll probably tune that noise out.

What the hell is Vacula talking about? Should I give a shit? And why are these mooncalves ignoring the fact that the protesters under discussion have been outed to people who issue rape threats against women in order to whine about bloggers they don’t like? Do they think it makes them look smart, or sympathetic? And why am I asking so many questions when the obvious answer is: because they’re jackasses.

So now I know what Justin Vacula’s boxcutter comment is about, and also (I think) what Jay was referring to regarding Dave Futrelle doxxing someone (Futrelle used a name he’d seen used publicly, but removed it when asked to.)

So…if this is vigilanteeism, what should we call the crowd of people wielding boxcutters around ‘John the Other?

Those weren’t box cutters, they where knitting needles…well at least according your world veiw of things. That is, box cutters are only a “guy thing.” Unless those where all dudes standing around John the Nutter…

Speaking of trolling nutters:

Open your mind and join the Slymers at the Slyme Pit

…just from this propaganda screed alone suggest the brains have long fallen out. So no thanks. You’ve gotta be kidding us. And not touching that place with a 100m pole, lol.

“So…if this is vigilanteeism, what should we call the crowd of people wielding boxcutters around ‘John the Other?’”

Book burners. Thought police. Do-gooders. Fundamentalists. Basically people who think they have a right to not be offended and determine for other people what they can hear or read.
Fine people though otherwise I’m sure.

Hehe adverts from your friendly neighbourhood pittizens Not getting enough new recruits guys? “Be on the right side of history”… Boy do they ever have an overblown pompous view of themselves! Makes it far too easy to take the piss.

Justin Vacula again proves his post on AVfM was deffo not supporting them, just co-incidence they happened to reproduce a hate filled article of his aimed at a feminist. He really is not here parroting nutty MRA propaganda about John the Otter being surrounded by evil feminists. I’m sure he would have been a great influence in the SCA and encouraged a lot of girlies to embroider atheist slogans for him while he solves the religion problem with his mates.

Join us as we mock and humiliate idiots such as Ophelia Benson and Rebecca Watson.

Because the goal shouldn’t be to convince the other side you’re right. The goal shouldn’t be to convince the bystanders that you’re right. The goal shouldn’t even be to marginalize the other point of view. No. The goal should be to humiliate your opponents. Thanks for being that explicit.

“Violentacrez was engaging in criminal behaviour (specifically he was effectively a child pornographer.)

That is a pretty big difference to the woman in the article, who appears to have been simply exercising her first amendment right of protest.”

As far as the protester, I’m not sure about Canadian law I will admit, but in any free society blocking people from getting into a building to hear a speaker should be criminal and is not in anyway an exercise in free expression. Do we know if the woman in the article was in the blockade? I would like to know. If she was she is no better than book burners imo. If she wasn’t she was as you say correctly “simply exercising her first amendment right of protest.”

Could you explain or link to violentacrez criminal behavior or proof of? Not familiar with him. But sounds like a strong charge on your part. Thanks.

Violentacrez decided to create a safe space for people sexually attracted to underage girls to share their photo stashes. I would call these people pedophiles; the Jailbait subreddit called them “ephebophiles .” Jailbait was the online equivalent of systematized street harassment. Users posted snapshots of tween and teenage girls, often in bikinis and skirts. Many of these were lifted from their Facebook accounts and thrown in front of Jailbait’s 20,000 horny subscribers.

Violentacrez and his fellow moderators worked hard to make sure every girl on jailbait was underage, diligently deleting any photos whose subjects seemed older than 16 or 17. Violentacrez himself posted hundreds of photos. Jailbait became one of Reddit’s most popular subreddits, generating millions of pageviews a month. “Jailbait” was for a time the second biggest search term bringing traffic to Reddit, after “Reddit.” Eventually, Jailbait landed on CNN, where Anderson Cooper called out Reddit for hosting it, and Violentacrez for creating it. The ensuing outcry led Reddit administrators to reluctantly ban Jailbait, and all sexually suggestive content featuring minors.

As in: I see it as quite the reverse. AvFM is closer to Violentacrez himself.

The parallel isn’t at all hard to find: they’re posting photos of feminist activists, in an attempt to invite a mob of harassers to surround and (attempt to) intimidate them. Note from Gorton’s quoted excerpt above: r/jailbait has been explicitly called the online equivalent of systematized street harassment.

The only difference being: Violentacrez chose his targets because they were young and apparently ‘jailbaity’. AvFM chooses theirs because they wish to silence them, and intimidate anyone else who might speak out against their ‘movement’.

So the parallel probably isn’t quite perfect. But note that this difference isn’t particularly flattering to AvFM, either. Way I see that is: I don’t know that there’s particularly obvious evidence r/jailbait contributors were so conscious of the potential impact upon their targets; it’s possible at least the sentiment there was more ‘don’t care; just want to drool’, and if it added up to harassment, who cares, this is a woman’s lot. AvFM’s general tactic, in contrast, is more directly obviously the game of authoritarian regimes everywhere. Shut up, don’t resist, don’t object to the established injustices, don’t make trouble for the existing order, or we’ll single you out, and get a mob looking for your head, specifically. You will be safe nowhere.

And yes, it’s appalling. The general dishonesty of it is staggering. They pose here, opportunistically, as ‘calling out bigotry’… But of course this is ultimately just meant to scare off criticism of their own deeply bigoted ideology, and one which, frankly, is generally firmly entrenched. And thus wind up, again, by making a mockery of all the terms their rhetoric touches.

Ahem. Way tangential and even trivial w.r.t. the point under discussion, but: the incident in question took place in Canada, where there is no “First Amendment”, nor the specific Constitution it amended (though a roughly similar legal right does exist). Please don’t do that.

“Ahem. Way tangential and even trivial w.r.t. the point under discussion, but: the incident in question took place in Canada, where there is no “First Amendment”, nor the specific Constitution it amended (though a roughly similar legal right does exist). Please don’t do that.”

Yeah. I tried to keep that in mind in my replies. I’m glad someone else pointed it out. Do you know the specifics or could you give us folks south of the border a run down on speech rights in Canada, and if you have the knowledge how they would apply to the poster episode and the blocking of an entrance? Thanks.

… and note, particularly, if this isn’t clear, the way the harassment is generally going to flow, following this. Which is the same as it always was. The people attending that event have to deal with an unruly protest outside, sure. Angry protesters, yes, and oh my dear. My heart bleeds for them. Surely, you should be able to hear out an apologist for incest without having people making such dreadful trouble, you poor dears…

… and they’ll go home to the same old system that’s prevailed for centuries. Barely aware or deliberately unaware that just by being male online, they can play all the games they like and chat where they like and not have to be endlessly careful not to let on they even are male.

Meanwhile, the feminist activists who gave them this apparently dreadfully unwelcome earful will find their inboxes opened up to the deep torrent of online hatred Anita Sarkeesian had the pleasure of discovering up close. And order is restored. The vocal chased down and properly chastised for objecting.

As for the postering I know people are allowed to put up posters but there are local bylaws that can restrict where you can and can`t put them up. It may or may not be permissible to take down posters and it would also depend on if they were done in accordance with local bylaws etc.

Well I probably will Ophelia. I just thought perchance someone here had first hand knowledge and could explain it better than a wiki. Thanks though for the advice.
Btw, do you support, regardless of jurisdiction, blockades to stop students or others from hearing a speaker? Do you support the tearing down of posters that one finds offense or otherwise not of merit?

@michaeld
Some form of criticism is needed. I don’t agree with what avm is doing. But I do think someone needs to speak up and explain to these young protesters that have, to me it seems, no grasp of speech rights or the underlying values of such rights. The marketplace of ideas should not be curtailed by punks ripping down posters or shitstains trying to prevent a speaker form speaking. If you don’t get it, imagine someone tearing down your posters you had permission to post, or someone stopping you from attending a speech. This shit does matter.

violentacrez was at the very least an enabler of sexual predators if not a sexual predator himself, and rocks like that need to be turned over.

A few women expressing their frustration at not being treated like fully human members of society, as opposed to walking genitals and wombs, is not even in the same galaxy. Anybody arguing otherwise is disingenuous or ignorant.

Actually my bigger point which I was trying to make subtle but I`ll make it overt is that this post is not about free speech or how to teach people to respect and engage in those rights. It was about actions by AVFM and you seem to keep wanting to derail it.

As far as the protester, I’m not sure about Canadian law I will admit, but in any free society blocking people from getting into a building to hear a speaker should be criminal and is not in anyway an exercise in free expression. Do we know if the woman in the article was in the blockade?

I agree. By doing that she is no better than the assholes who block abortion clinic entrances (and there is one well known woman in Canada who does this, she has spent years in jail for it). But posting the personal information of people who were simply there with the implication that they should be raped and beaten is going a little far imo.

From a layperson’s perspective who lives in the city of this dispute and has done so for sometime. And who has participated in a number of protests both big and small for various causes, I can least attempt some insight to your questions. Keep in mind, I am an artist, not a lawyer or legal expert. So don’t take my word for this. And as well, the following appears only releavant if our city is not hosting a G20 summit, lol.

I don’t think there are really any laws here in my country that prevent one group blockading another group, including preventing the other group’s speaker from speaking. What the police would likely be looking for instead, where they any legal infractions in the process…such as violence, vandalism, public drinking, riots and hooliganism. They may also look into if either group is promoting extreme hate, such if they where a neo-Nazis group or the Westboro Baptist Church.

As for tearing down signs, this could fall under vandalism. But that’s usually by a case by case situation. Police will be more proned to take action against someone if they’re defacing an expensive billboard, store front sign or a work of art than some photocopied foolscap slapped up on a utility pole. And I do know Elections Canada takes a very dim veiw of tearing down political signs during an election. But it doesn’t sound like this speaker was there for campaigning to run for public office, and there was no election was being called during this alleged altercation if he was.

However, there is likely a more serious issues with doxxing. As this could lead to stalking, which is illegal in our country. Thus criminal charges could laid and rightfully so to the offending party, especailly if harm comes out of the affected party. As well as it likely does open the offending party to libel and litergation by the party affected. So yeah…the MRA’s in this case could end up sitting in the cllnker with a big legal headache over this, lol. I would cease and desist doing this if I was them. /shrug

Thanks for the informative reply Utakata. Still reading wikis and whatnot trying to get a grasp. I did not mean to derail. I thought a discussion of the actions that brought about the actions of the jerks at avm would be on topic. Hopefully it will be a subject of a post on here soon. Well till then I’m back to reading Canadian law:(

@52: I once participated in a very low-key “protest” of a psychic event (barely even a protest — we just passed out leaflets explaining about cold-reading etc.) and it was explained to us by the police that we couldn’t block the sidewalk or hinder people entering the venue. Which we didn’t. So AFAIK, actual blockading is illegal, which is as it should be — I insist on the right to enter any public event to hear any speaker I like, and make up my own mind whether they’re full of shit. But passing out information, waving signs, and generally making lots of noise outside the venue — by all means, that’s an appropriate response.

Tearing down posters, which with some exceptions probably don’t enjoy any legal protection themselves, is legal but in my view unethical. Put up your own posters, right next to theirs.

While I’m at it: IMHO one should stay completely away from talking about killing or other violence against the opposition, even in clearly hyperbolic jocular tweets. Which in no way implies moral equivalence in the current case, by reason of differences in severity, volume, power gradient, history, likelihood of it being carried out, and probably more reasons I haven’t thought of. Just don’t go there, and not only because the liars on the other side will use it to make you look bad.

And none of which justifies revealing identities for the purpose of exposing people to harassment.

I can’t remember which one because they’re so interchangeable, but one of the AVfM’s crew of semi-literature shit-stirrers (not JohnTheOther), claims without proof that some at manboobz found his real name, which is featured on the website linked to his account, and something something destroyed his career. Of course, MRAs treat this as the gospel truth because any excuse to believe Futrelle is evil.

Also one time he posted a proxy ip a serial troll was using, to prove he knew the dude was a repeat stalker. But not anything that could actually be used to trace the dude. Again, MRAs claim greatest invasion of privacy ever.

Before the JtO thing earlier this week, he’s never doxxed anyone that I know of, and has smacked down talk of doxxing before, and I was a regular there for a long time.

A federal judge will allow anonymity for three of the four people who are suing New Kensington-Arnold School District over its Ten Commandments monument.

Attorney Marcus B. Schneider, who represents the Freedom From Religion Foundation and two families who filed suit in September, recently asked U.S. District Judge Terrence F. McVerry to allow the two children and one of the parents to continue to use the pseudonym “Doe” as the lawsuit proceeds…

“Due to the highly personal and sensitive religious matters involved, the age of the student-Plaintiffs, the (ill will) expressed by the public regarding the Plaintiffs and this case, harassing remarks about the Plaintiffs, and the potential for physical harm, Plaintiffs request an order permitting Doe 1, Doe 2, and Doe 3 to proceed under pseudonyms,” Schneider wrote on Nov. 21.

I once participated in a very low-key “protest” of a psychic event (barely even a protest — we just passed out leaflets explaining about cold-reading etc.) and it was explained to us by the police that we couldn’t block the sidewalk or hinder people entering the venue. Which we didn’t. So AFAIK, actual blockading is illegal, which is as it should be — I insist on the right to enter any public event to hear any speaker I like, and make up my own mind whether they’re full of shit. But passing out information, waving signs, and generally making lots of noise outside the venue — by all means, that’s an appropriate response.

Thank you for clarifying that, I was not aware of that….since I’ve always veiwed this as two (or more) groups trying to express themeselves. And assumed, perhaps wrongfully, there would be no legal issue over this except if any laws where broken in doing so. But I am also wondering this protest you where at was at a private venue or a public venue that licensed the affair? That could have some bearing as well as how the police would step in. *Noting as well, that unions can block scabs, during a labor dispute.

But either way, and this has also be begging the question with me. If the group being blocked had legal rights not to be blocked, then why did they not the the authorities involved? And instead, seemingly to take the law into their own hands by doxxing. This seems like a really bad, unethical and potentially legally regretable decison they’ve made. Kinda like me shooting my neighbor’s family because he/she encouraged their dog to crap on my lawn, bad.

*Note: I am also not clear on the legal postion of this, other than what I’ve read and seen from the media outlets over labor disputes in this country.

And yes, for the convenience of North American readers, I spelling labour as “labor” amoung other things. So forgive me.

I think part of the reason is breach of fire code ie can`t block exits incase of a fire etc. And the authorities were involved cause they were there. The police parted the protesters so they only delayed the talk.

@59: The psychic venue was a privately-owned theatre, but I don’t think that matters. IANAL, but I think it’s irrelevant whether the building is publicly-owned or privately-owned, and the management is holding a public event (which, well, theatres generally do, almost by definition). The police came because the manager didn’t like us there — and they explained to us (and, I assume, to him) what the legal situation was. Entry to the premises is a transaction between the entrant and the owners, and no third party has the right to intervene (yes, what unions do during strikes is often illegal, but the authorities generally prefer to concentrate on just keeping the peace in these situations).

My understanding (I haven’t watched the video) is that the police were called to this event at the U of T, and did clear the demonstrators, but didn’t arrest anyone. Again, the police often just want to calm things down, not necessarily to prosecute anyone (unless, of course….G20 ). The doxxing, of course, is just an intimidation tactic by AVFM to toss on top of whatever legal grievance they *might* legitimately have.

Thank you Eamon Knight and michaeld for explaining this. As I said from the onset, I am not a legal expert on this…so what I stated certainly needed verifying and/or correcting. Now I have a better grasp of the legalease of this matter.

…and it does appear the authorities did act on this. Something I wasn’t entirely clear on. But wondered why it was at least not mentioned in this thread by the complainers and detractors. That is, the group who had their speaker interupted and now taking revenge by doxxing (AVfM). Which is now even more disturbing, since evidence now suggests that justice was indeed served to the “unruley” group doing the blocking. So why do they need to dox again, when the law has already sorted out their grievances? Again, this is like me shooting my neighbor’s family despite knowing the neighbor was already legally charged for ecouraging their dog to crap on my lawn. Thus in this case, AVfM proves to be nothing more than a wretched excuse for scum and villainy IMO. /sigh